Keeping Mozart in Mind

Dr. Gordon Shaw's book, Keeping Mozart in Mind. Dr. Shaw (University of California-Irvine) has worked with AMC during the past 7 years to publicize his research results on Music and Early Childhood Development, Music and the Brain and Music Making and Math.

The book is due in bookstores in September and will include a CD-ROM which includes the recording of the music used in Dr. Shaw's research, Allegro con spirito from Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, (K.448) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, performed by Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu, courtesy of Sony Classical. The CD-ROM also contains a special descriptive version of the S.T.A.R. (Spatial-Temporal Animation Reasoning) interactive computer game developed by Matthew Peterson.

In the landmark book, Dr. Shaw shows how music can help us understand how the brain works and how music may enhance how we think, reason and create. It includes key information about scientific research studies that have shown some remarkable results, including these:

-In November 1993, Dr. Shaw and Dr. Frances Rauscher publish an article in Nature. I announced that a study done with college students showed that listening to the Mozart Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K.448) caused a subsequent enhancement in reasoning. This "Mozart effect," as coined by the media, created world-wide interest.

-In February 1997, a study from Dr. Shaw's laboratory published in Neurological Research, announced that six months of piano keyboard training caused enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning in preschool children: they scored 34% higher on puzzle-solving tests.

-In March 1999, Neurological Research published the latest study headed by Shaw, reporting that second graders who played the piano and the S.T.A.R. interactive game developed by Peterson saw their scores rise 27% on proportional math and fraction tests.